Royal Bank of Scotland offers mortgage relief to customers hit by coronavirus

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Royal Bank of Scotland defers mortgage and loan repayments for up to THREE MONTHS for customers impacted by coronavirus

  • RBS has said it would also waive early closure charges on fixed savings accounts 
  • Bank will offer refunds on credit card cash advance fees to affected customers 
  • The bank said customers could apply for increased temporary credit card limits 

    • By Amie Gordon For Mailonline

    Published: | Updated:

    The Royal Bank of Scotland has today announced it will defer mortgage and loan repayments for up to three months for customers impacted by coronavirus. 

    RBS said it would also waive early closure charges on fixed savings accounts and offer refunds on credit card cash advance fees so affected customers can access cash without penalty.

    The bank said customers could apply for increased temporary credit card limits and request an increased cash withdrawal limit of up to £500 to help them manage disruption.

    This comes after Italy – which is now on lockdown – said mortgage payments would be suspended.   

    RBS said it would also waive early closure charges on fixed savings accounts and offer refunds on credit card cash advance fees so affected customers can access cash without penalty

    The Edinburgh-based bank, which owns RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank, made the announcement today as the world remains in the grip of coronavirus, with many businesses feeling the impact of the crisis. 

    RBS said it has so far ‘proactively’ contacted 5,000 customers to offer support. 

    A spokeswoman for RBS said: ‘We are monitoring the potential impact of coronavirus across all our customers to ensure we can support them appropriately through any period of disruption.’

    Natwest, meanwhile, said it would pledge £5bn of funding to support small and medium-sized businesses across the UK amid disruption caused by coronavirus. 

    The banks said funding will be used to provide loan repayment holidays of up to six months, as well as temporary emergency loans with no fees.

    It will will also grant overdrafts of extensions of existing overdraft limits, as well credit limits of up to £500,000 to support cashflow.

    And Lloyds Banking Group has offered £2billion of new funding for small firms, which won’t come with any arrangement fee, to help their cashflows cope with the virus. 

    Italy’s banking lobby ABI said yesterday that most lenders would offer debt moratoriums to small firms and households grappling with the economic fallout.

    The government has also drawn up plans for an economic stimulus and has led calls for the EU to loosen budget rules to tackle the crisis.

    Italy suspends mortgage payments in the wake of coronavirus outbreak’s economic impact 

    Payments on mortgages will be suspended across the whole of Italy after the coronavirus outbreak, the country’s deputy economy minister said today.

    ‘Yes, that will be the case, for individuals and households,’ Laura Castelli said in an interview with Radio Anch’io, when asked about the possibility.

    Italy’s banking lobby ABI has said that lenders representing 90 per cent of total banking assets would offer debt moratoriums to small firms and households grappling with the economic fallout.

    The news comes as Italy announced that it had doubled the amount it plans to spend on tackling its coronavirus outbreak to £6.5billion and is raising this year’s deficit goal to 2.5 per cent of national output from the current 2.2 per cent target.  

    Speaking to La Repubblica, prime minister Conte yesterday vowed a course of ‘massive shock therapy’ to aid the Italian economy after much of its industrial and business heartland was shut down. 

    The Milan stock market, which was already down some 17 per cent since the outbreak in northern Italy, plunged at Monday’s opening, with the blue chip FTMIB index down 11 per cent. 

    Matching similar calls from France, Conte said strict European Union borrowing limits should be loosened to allow more room for manoeuvre, and that the flexibility envisaged by the EU’s budget rules should be used ‘in full’.    

    ‘Europe cannot think of confronting an extraordinary situation with ordinary measures,’ he said. 

    The European Commission told Italy on Saturday that its planned extra spending in response to the outbreak would not be counted in measuring its compliance with EU budget rules.  

    ‘The economic measures in the works will be vigorous, commensurate to current needs, but temporary,’ the economy ministry said, adding that Italy remained committed to reducing its debt as soon as possible.